Job # 988 Looking Back, Looking Forward

Job Description

For nearly 150 years, First Presbyterian Church has been a solid presence in Greenville and in the Mississippi Delta. But more than a just a presence, it has been a symbol of God’s presence in this area, and it has been a source of strength, of stability, and of leadership.

Members of this church have been involved in the leadership of nearly every aspect of Greenville’s life from the very beginning. It is difficult to imagine how different Greenville would have been without the quiet but steady influence of First Presbyterian Church and its members. First Presbyterian Church has stood the tests of time. What a difference this church has made in the life of the city!

Today, as Greenville changes, many wonder about the future of our city. While no one knows the answer to that question, one thing remains certain: as long as there is a Greenville, Mississippi, there will be a First Presbyterian Church in Greenville. Other churches will decline and even close their doors, but First Presbyterian Church will continue to do what it has done so faithfully for 148 years: it will provide spiritual leadership to the city and to the region; it will offer a quiet, steady witness to God’s presence; and it will serve the poorest and the neediest in the community without fanfare.

But to fulfill its mission in the future, we have to make sure our facilities are prepared for that future. While the buildings are in fundamentally sound condition, there are many, many ways in which they are beginning to show their age, and even to fall into disrepair. We who are the members of First Presbyterian Church in 2006 were given these buildings by former generations who worked and sacrificed to provide us such a magnificent facility. When we pass it on to the next generation of leaders, what will we leave them?

Today, we have a plan to ensure that the next generation will receive a facility that is in excellent condition, as well as the ongoing resources to care for it properly, without having to sacrifice mission or program. First, we will upgrade and improve our current facilities to bring them up to contemporary standards. Next, we will enhance the exterior of our church, providing attractive lighting, helpful signs, and a renovated parking lot. We’ll reconfigure part of our office suite to provide our staff with a safe, secure working environment from which they can more easily monitor who comes in and out of our buildings throughout the day. We’ll make some modest renovations to Nunan Hall and the adjoining kitchen. And we’ll replace our aging boiler, our organ blower, and two of the three air conditioning condensers in the main building.

Finally, and as an expression of our gratitude to God, we will provide the money to build one complete Habitat for Humanity home. We’ll also add men’s and women’s showers to Nunan Hall to enable the church to serve as an emergency shelter when the need arises, and to host visiting mission groups. And we’ll provide modest funding to our sister church in Mexico to put the roof on their new sanctuary.

The total cost of this work, including professional fees, is $750,000. That may seem like a large price to pay, but we owe it to our children and our grandchildren to hand to them these facilities in the same condition our parents and grandparents gave them to us.

But won’t this place future generations in a financial bind? No. The next part of the Session’s plan, which the congregation has already endorsed, is the establishment of a permanent endowment fund that will provide a permanent income stream for building maintenance. The immediate goal for the endowment is between $600,000 and $1,000,000. At this level, the endowment can conservatively produce between $30,000 and $50,000 per year for building maintenance, and still have money left to reinvest into the corpus so the endowment can grow and begin to fund other needs.

First Presbyterian Church is our home. Its members are our family. It has been home to generations in Greenville, and it will continue to be home for generations yet to come. As we look to the future, let us take decisive action now to secure that future for our children and for our children’s children, so that they may continue our long tradition of witness, service, and leadership in Greenville and in the Mississippi Delta for years to come.